y'know.....saying the perfect thing at the right time and not wishing you had said something else ten minutes later.

this happened to me today.

i was stuck on the till and some stuff i wont bore you with had put me in a bit of a mood. i served some people. they were jolly people. a lady in her forties and a man in his forties. they did that jokey banter thing with each other where they are fully aware that someone is watching them do banter and so they sort of perform because of it. they were happy people.

i was far from chipper, but i wasn't being a miserable cunt. just on a level. so i asked if they wanted a bag. they said no.

they then said....'save the planet and all that'

i said, in a perfectly mannered way, still not being a miserable cunt but not doing cartwheels....'yeah, that's it'

for some reason they really laughed at me saying this. because it was wasn't funny, i didn't laugh. but i did do a sort of, little closed-lipped smile, 'what a crazy life eh' lift of the eyebrows type thing.

as they turned away, the woman very loudly said...

'i think they should teach them how to smile in here'....in a slightly nasty way.

so i, in a slightly angry way, shouted, 'i tell you what, come back tomorrow and i'll give you a smile then'.

it was so unbelievably perfectly passive-aggressive.....and with a subtle undercurrent of sexual threat. probably.

anyway...i was thinking about what else i could've said, and nothing i thought of topped this for the situation. i got to be sort of rude to a customer without actually being that rude to a customer. i don't think she even realised i was essentially calling her a prick.

anyway

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME THIS HAPPENED TO YOU, SAYING THE RIGHT THING.